The Phantom of the Opera - Gaston Leroux (bill gates best books .TXT) 📗

slip the envelope into the tail-pocket of your dress-coat.⁠ ⁠… There’s no witchcraft about that!”

“No witchcraft!” growled Richard, rolling his eyes like Jupiter Tonans. “No witchcraft! Why, I’ve just caught you in a lie, you old witch!”

Mame Giry bristled, with her three teeth sticking out of her mouth.

“And why, may I ask?”

“Because I spent that evening watching Box Five and the sham envelope which you put there. I did not go to the ballet-foyer for a second.”

“No, sir, and I did not give you the envelope that evening, but at the next performance⁠ ⁠… on the evening when the undersecretary of state for fine arts⁠ ⁠…”

At these words, M. Richard suddenly interrupted Mame Giry:

“Yes, that’s true, I remember now! The undersecretary went behind the scenes. He asked for me. I went down to the ballet-foyer for a moment. I was on the foyer steps.⁠ ⁠… The undersecretary and his chief clerk were in the foyer itself.⁠ ⁠… I suddenly turned around⁠ ⁠… you had passed behind me, Mme. Giry.⁠ ⁠… You seemed to push against me.⁠ ⁠… Oh, I can see you still, I can see you still!”

“Yes, that’s it, sir, that’s it. I had just finished my little business. That pocket of yours, sir, is very handy!”

And Mame Giry once more suited the action to the word. She passed behind M. Richard and, so nimbly that Moncharmin himself was impressed by it, slipped the envelope into the pocket of one of the tails of M. Richard’s dress-coat.

“Of course!” exclaimed Richard, looking a little pale. “It’s very clever of O. G. The problem which he had to solve was this: how to do away with any dangerous intermediary between the man who gives the twenty-thousand francs and the man who receives it. And by far the best thing he could hit upon was to come and take the money from my pocket without my noticing it, as I myself did not know that it was there. It’s wonderful!”

“Oh, wonderful, no doubt!” Moncharmin agreed. “Only, you forget, Richard, that I provided ten-thousand francs of the twenty and that nobody put anything in my pocket!”

XVII The Safety-Pin Again

Moncharmin’s last phrase so clearly expressed the suspicion in which he now held his partner that it was bound to cause a stormy explanation, at the end of which it was agreed that Richard should yield to all Moncharmin’s wishes, with the object of helping him to discover the miscreant who was victimizing them.

This brings us to the interval after the Garden Act, with the strange conduct observed by M. Rémy and those curious lapses from the dignity that might be expected of the managers. It was arranged between Richard and Moncharmin, first, that Richard should repeat the exact movements which he had made on the night of the disappearance of the first twenty-thousand francs; and, second, that Moncharmin should not for an instant lose sight of Richard’s coattail pocket, into which Mame Giry was to slip the twenty-thousand francs.

M. Richard went and placed himself at the identical spot where he had stood when he bowed to the undersecretary for fine arts. M. Moncharmin took up his position a few steps behind him.

Mame Giry passed, rubbed up against M. Richard, got rid of her twenty-thousand francs in the manager’s coattail pocket and disappeared.⁠ ⁠… Or rather she was conjured away. In accordance with the instructions received from Moncharmin a few minutes earlier, Mercier took the good lady to the acting-manager’s office and turned the key on her, thus making it impossible for her to communicate with her ghost.

Meanwhile, M. Richard was bending and bowing and scraping and walking backward, just as if he had that high and mighty minister, the undersecretary for fine arts, before him. Only, though these marks of politeness would have created no astonishment if the undersecretary of state had really been in front of M. Richard, they caused an easily comprehensible amazement to the spectators of this very natural but quite inexplicable scene when M. Richard had nobody in front of him.

M. Richard bowed⁠ ⁠… to nobody; bent his back⁠ ⁠… before nobody; and walked backward⁠ ⁠… before nobody.⁠ ⁠… And, a few steps behind him, M. Moncharmin did the same thing that he was doing, in addition to pushing away M. Rémy and begging M. de La Borderie, the ambassador, and the manager of the Crédit Central “not to touch M. le directeur.”

Moncharmin, who had his own ideas, did not want Richard to come to him presently, when the twenty-thousand francs were gone, and say:

“Perhaps it was the ambassador⁠ ⁠… or the manager of the Crédit Central⁠ ⁠… or Rémy.”

The more so as, at the time of the first scene, as Richard himself admitted, Richard had met nobody in that part of the theater after Mame Giry had brushed up against him.⁠ ⁠…

Having begun by walking backward in order to bow, Richard continued to do so from prudence, until he reached the passage leading to the offices of the management. In this way, he was constantly watched by Moncharmin from behind and himself kept an eye on anyone approaching from the front. Once more, this novel method of walking behind the scenes, adopted by the managers of our National Academy of Music, attracted attention; but the managers themselves thought of nothing but their twenty-thousand francs.

On reaching the half-dark passage, Richard said to Moncharmin, in a low voice:

“I am sure that nobody has touched me.⁠ ⁠… You had now better keep at some distance from me and watch me till I come to door of the office: it is better not to arouse suspicion and we can see anything that happens.”

But Moncharmin replied. “No, Richard, no! You walk ahead and I’ll walk immediately behind you! I won’t leave you by a step!”

“But, in that case,” exclaimed Richard, “they will never steal our twenty-thousand francs!”

“I should hope not, indeed!” declared Moncharmin.

“Then what we are doing is absurd!”

“We are doing exactly what we did last time.⁠ ⁠… Last time, I joined you as you were leaving the stage and followed close behind you down this passage.”

“That’s true!” sighed Richard, shaking his head and passively obeying Moncharmin.

Two minutes later, the joint managers locked themselves into